


Replete

by ScumbagSimon



Series: Alive Together [2]
Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), My Chemical Romance
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brotherly Love, Brothers, Family Reunions, First Meetings, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Gunshot Wounds, No Romance, Reunions, Trans Kobra Kid (Danger Days), Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:41:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24254530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScumbagSimon/pseuds/ScumbagSimon
Summary: A heartbeat passed, two, and then what he was seeing changed, like he'd had blurry vision all this time and somebody had given him a pair of glasses. That was why Kobra looked so familiar, felt so familiar. His face was thinner, older, and sharper, but Party could see his sibling in the sharp hazel eyes, the brown hair on the side of his head, his pointed nose, and the way his mouth pursed as he looked at the sky. Suddenly he was the most familiar person Party had ever seen.
Series: Alive Together [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1750810
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	Replete

“Yeah, there's no Emily there, just the adult Ways.”  
Those words killed Party Poison, because now he knew that his sister was gone. Whether she had been killed by BL/ind, turned into a Draculoid, or tried to escape the city, she was gone. Even if she had succeeded in her escape, the desert was huge.  
He was never going to see her again.  
His grieving period was long, but soft. He could forget about her for hours at a time, only to remember her when he was driving and the wind was whistling through his hair, thinking about how she would have liked it. At night when he was on watch he would remember her as he'd seen her last, twelve years old, with straight brown hair reaching her shoulders, pale with a few freckles on her face caused by the dim sunlight that flooded Battery City in the summer, wearing black and white dresses that she never seemed to like, quiet in public but would laugh with him in their room when they were alone, childlike joy overcoming the grasp of the pills they were forced to take.  
He'd always clutched onto the dream that one day he would rescue her from the city, and the two of them would traverse the desert together, two rouges bound together by blood, doing anything to protect each other. He wanted to see her happy.  
She would have been eighteen this year.   
Time went on. He never forgot her, the memory of her sharp smile and steely hazel eyes, but he let go of his grief. Hopefully she was out there somewhere, or else dead, either way in a better place than if she were a Drac, or even worse, a Scarecrow. He let his thoughts of her fade from bitter and painful to wistful and aching, then gently into nostalgia and fondness. He'd always remember her, but it didn't hurt so much now.   
Back in the present, the door to the shop creaked open. Through the shelves, he could see a killjoy with a yellow shirt pass by to the counter. He tapped his fingers on the shelf and listened to him talk with the store owner, though he couldn't make out the words. A minute later he glanced up to see that the killjoy was standing at the end of his isle, staring at him with widened hazel eyes. Maybe he recognized him from a wanted poster, or maybe he just wasn't expecting to see anyone there, but whatever the case it put Party on edge, and he ghosted a hand over his gun, where it was holstered on his leg.  
“Can I help you?” he asked, slipping a bit of sarcasm into his tone. He wasn't sure why, but something about this killjoy seemed off. He looked familiar, though Party was pretty certain he'd never seen him before.   
“Hello,” the killjoy said in a small voice.   
He wasn't in the mood for a fight right now, nor was he in the mood for someone to be afraid of him. He raised an eyebrow. “Hello? If that's all...”  
Suddenly there were footsteps behind him, and he turned.  
For the past two years, Party had been running with two other killjoys. Jet Star, a gentle giant with a mass of curly brown hair, and Fun Ghoul, a 5'5” man child with a scar on the side of his face and a taste for explosives. They were family to him, which is how he knew who was approaching him before he even turned. He recognized the footsteps.  
“There's a patrol van coming,” Jet gasped, obviously having run from outside where he'd been waiting with Ghoul. “Hurry, there might still be—“  
Jet was interrupted by the sound of screeching tires out front. A Draculoid van had arrived, judging by the white shape out of the cloudy window.   
“Shit,” Party turned to the killjoy in the yellow shirt, then pulled out his gun. “Get in the back, find a way out an run. We're used to shit like this, we've got it covered.”  
Party didn't wait for an answer before he ran out. Ghoul was waiting for them on the porch, so Party ran around him and to the Trans Am. Unfortunately, blaster fire broke out before Ghoul could leave the porch, pinning him. Party slid behind the Am and aimed his gun, ready for a fight.  
The fight went pretty smoothly, at first. The Dracs were steadily dropping to the ground, not having much cover aside from behind their van, from where they couldn't shoot. Perhaps for once, luck was on their side.  
Then the last Drac fired. It's shot didn't quite hit Party's hand, but it was close enough that the heat made him flinch, and he dropped his gun. He went to grab it on instinct, then realized too late that the Drac was ready to fire, and this time it would make it's aim true. There was nothing the three of them could do to stop it.   
Except it wasn't just the three of them. A killjoy, more of a blur of yellow,leapedt out of nowhere and tackled it around the waist, slamming it into the ground. They struggled for one second, two, and then the Drac fell limp, and the killjoy stepped away.  
Ghoul jumped out from where he'd been huddling, behind an upturned card table, and stepped off the porch with an exaggerated hop. “Well, that was fun.”  
“Fun is a word for it,” Jet glanced around warily, then holstered his gun.  
Party reached up and pushed his hair out of his eyes. “Thanks for the assist, kid.”  
The killjoy, a few inches taller than him, shuffled on his feet awkwardly. “You're welcome.”  
"Never in all my time in this godforsaken wasteland have I seen somebody tackle a Drac like that," Ghoul grinned with admiration at the newcomer. "That was rad, man."  
“Thanks,” the killjoy looked surprised. “Your shooting is pretty good too.”  
"Nothing compared to yours!" Ghoul insisted. "Takes me a couple shots to get one down, but you were like "pew pew" James Bonding this shit up! Insanity, my man, insanity."  
Party was set to ask who the hell James Bond was when Jet interrupted him.   
“"If you're done gushing—" (he turned to the new killjoy) "—You've got a cut there."  
Party had noticed it a few moments earlier. A red gash stretched from the killjoy's temple to his hairline, oozing blood down his face. He reached up and wiped away some blood. “Yeah.”  
"I might have a bandaid in the car," Jet offered, eager to mother anybody he could. "You know, as a payment for saving Party."  
"Nobody saved me, motherfucker," Party crossed his arms, indignation sparking. "I had the situation covered."  
"Uh huh."  
"That's nice of you," the killjoy interrupted what surely would have been a full-blown bickering war. "But I don't need to be paid. Anybody would have done it."  
"Anybody should have," Ghoul snorted. "Not would have."  
The killjoy's face turned pink, highlighting his freckles. He turned and walked away, and Party thought he was about to leave without another word when he leaned down to pick up a yellow helmet that Party hadn't noticed before.  
Almost too quiet to hear, the killjoy muttered, “Damn coward cashier took my fuckin bike.”  
He looked into the distance, seeminly thinking, and Party noticed both Jet and Ghoul were staring at him pleadingly. God fucking damn it. Cursing himself, he nodded.  
“You could come with us,” Ghoul offered eagerly. “Y'know, until you can get a new bike.”  
Ten minutes later and the new killjoy, introduced as Kobra Kid, was sitting in the backseat next to Ghoul, the helmet in his lap. Party glanced at him in the cracked review mirror every few minutes until Jet slapped his arm to stop him.   
Despite Ghoul's offer of 'until you can get a new bike', the three killjoys knew that was a bunch of horse shit. Whether Kobra Kid knew it or not, he was here to stay if he so chose. Befriending people so quickly was pretty dangerous in the desert, but Party had always trusted his gut, and his gut said this guy could be trusted.

Kobra didn't say much to Party while he lived with them, though he seemed comfortable talking to Jet and Ghoul. Oftentimes Party wondered if he'd said something wrong, or done something wrong, that had make Kobra not trust him or like him. Several times he almost asked, but always held himself back. If Kobra wanted to talk to him he would, and besides, he was never rude to him. Just a bit awkward and quiet. Perhaps he was just like that with certain people.  
There were very few initial worries that Kobra wouldn't fit right with their dynamic, but it was still a relief when he clicked with them so easily, like the perfect shaped piece for their messed up little puzzle. He seemed to act more in Jet's lane, which was good because they already had two chaotic idiots in the group, and they could use another calm face of reason. It didn't stop him from making jokes though, and his deadpan delivery once made Ghoul fall all the way off the counter he'd been sitting on, continuing to snicker at random intervals the rest of the day. Party appreciated the sharp angles of his face, in an artistic way of course. Once when Kobra stared out a window for almost half an hour, Party took that time to draw a detailed scetch of him, even offering it to the model before he was turned down. There didn't seem to be any malice in it though, so Party placed the drawing on a stack of his other portraits of Jet, Ghoul, and himself. It was nice to add another face.   
Ghoul had a habit of walking into a room and sitting on the nearest person's lap. It wasn't a bad habit per se, since he didn't weigh much and both Jet and Party liked cuddling, but the first time he did it to Kobra, Party nearly fell out of his chair laughing at the shocked expression on Kobra's face. He'd stiffened like he was frozen, looking at Jet and Party like 'help me', but of course the two of them only laughed. Ghoul didn't do it to Kobra again until much later, and then there was much less panic involved and more 'ew you smell like shit get off me'.   
Party wasn't the only one who'd noticed Kobra was awkward around him. A month or more after they'd upped their number to four, Jet begged Party to try and get along better with him, and sent the two of them on a mission to get water from the Canal. Kobra was silent the whole drive, fiddling with his hands while Party sang along to the radio. It was a while before Party realized he was playing air bass on his legs, and he managed to strike up a conversation about music. Apparentl,y Kobra used to own a bass before a rogue killjoy stole it. Party filed that information away for later.  
They arrived at the Canal and wasted no time hauling water from the bottom of the seven-foot-deep slope and back into the car in heavy jugs, once white but now painted with an array of bright colors. At one point Party noticed Kobra slipping backwards and just managed to grab his shirt in time. The fall probably wouldn't kill him, but it would definitely hurt. Party wasn't in the mood to drive a wounded Kobra Kid thirty-five miles back to base.  
If they were smart, they would have taken turns hauling water and keeping watch. Unfortunately they seemed to have three collective braincells, because when both of them were crouched at the bottom, filling their jugs, they heard tires roll up to the top of the slope.  
While Party darted to hide under the concrete bridge, Kobra leapt over the water and climbed the opposite slope, hiding behind a scraggly bush. The Draculoids noticed him almost instantly, and pinned him with blaster fire raining like a halo around his shelter.  
Party, ever the strategist, hurried width-wise along his bridge. He hadn't yet been noticed by the Dracs, but that was about to change.   
He popped up with a great angle on their exposed left flank and began shooting, quickly taking down three before they even noticed him. The fire was now split between the two of them, so they could both shoot. Steadily the Dracs began to fall to the ground, but the upper hand didn't last. When one Drac was left, Kobra suddenly pulled back into his bush. Party could only assume he'd been hit, which gave him just enough anger to shoot the last one down with a shot to the chest. BL/ind could take away all outside color, but they couldn't take away the red of blood. Party always found that poetic.  
Kobra peeked out from behind his shelter, then walked over to Party via the bridge. He was clutching his side, where red stained his shirt.   
“You okay?”  
“Just a graze,” Kobra sounded winded, but the wound didn't look too bad. “It'll heal.”  
Looks like he'll be driving an injured Kobra home after all.  
Nevertheless, it did seem to just be a graze, so Party went down the slope to retrieve their last jugs of water so they could be on their way. He bent down to pick up the jugs and heard a quiet noise, like a blaster going off. Probably it was his imagination.  
He wished it was.   
When he reached the top of the slope he was met with a dark sight. Kobra was on the ground, limp as a ragdoll, and the last Drac that he thought he'd killed had it's arm raised a few inches off the ground, hand shaking. If it hadn't been shaking, Kobra would have been shot somewhere much more deadly, like the chest or the head. As it was, there was a dark red spot just below his ribcage, spreading rapidly.  
Party shot the Drac with a satisfied rage, then raced over to kneel next to Kobra. The killjoy was shaking, hands hovering over his wound, which was a dark bloody spot filled with sand and scraps of his yellow shirt. His chest was heaving and he met Party's eyes like he was pleading for help.  
And by Destroya, Party was gonna help him.  
Shaking with fear himself, he rushed to the Trans Am and grabbed an american flag patterned bandana out of the backseat. Rushing back to Kobra he pressed it to the wound, wincing as the killjoy gasped.   
“You hold on,” Party could feel his voice shaking too. “You hold on, because it's a fifteen minute drive back, and that's if I'm going top speed. I'm gonna get you in the car, okay? Back seat, so you can stretch your legs. Nice 'n comfy.”  
Gently as he could, Party lifted Kobra up in a bridal hold. The killjoy was lighter than expected, but it was still a struggle to carry him to the backseat, door thankfully already open. He set him down gently and made sure his feet were clear of the door. “You hold this here—” (Party moved Kobra's free hand to the bandana) “—I'm gonna drive. You'll be okay, I promise. You're gonna be fine.”  
Party was aware he was telling himself that just as much as he was telling Kobra. Still, he closed the door and hopped into the front seat, disregarding the left behind jugs of water. Maybe some other killjoy would stumble upon them, or maybe he could come back for them once Kobra was okay.  
He would be okay.  
Party hit the gas, taking off with a screech. It was dangerous to drive full speed for thirty-five miles, but he would have to risk it. No way was he slowing down, not even for a second.   
Then, in the back, Kobra began to talk.  
“I'm sorry,” he said, almost too quietly for Party to hear. “I missed you. That's why I left. I wanted... to tell you my... my name. I didn't want you... to remember me like you remember me... not like that.”  
He doesn't know who he's talking to, Party realized. He thinks I'm someone else.   
“I missed you,” Kobra muttered. “You left me... it's okay... but I'm not... I'm not Em...”  
His voice trailed away, and he was silent. Party glanced in the rearview mirror and saw that his hand had fallen off his wound, and his eyes were closed, and his mouth slightly parted. He urged the car to go faster.  
Ten minutes stretched into ten years, but Party finally arrived at the diner, hopping out of the car before it had even stopped and yelling loudly.  
Jet and Ghoul rushed out, curiousity on their faces that morphed into horror when they saw Kobra, and Party trying to lift him. He was too shaky.  
Jet was stronger than Party, so he quickly picked up the injured killjoy and rushed inside, Party on his heels and Ghoul running ahead to open the door. Jet laid the unconcious Kobra down on a table, Ghoul pushing another one up against it for more room. Then they set to work.  
The water they'd gotten from the canal was dirty, but they still had a bit of filtered water left. Jet poured it onto a cleanish rag and began wiping Kobra's wound clean, instructing Ghoul to get their meagre med kit from the back room. Party pulled the ruined shirt off Kobra in the meanwhile. Underneath it was a black binder, which he hesitated to remove, but unzipped when he found the clasp in the back.   
Ghoul came back with the med kit as Jet poured water into the wound, washing out the last of the sand, and hopefully, germs. The floor now had a puddle of bloody water on it, but none of them gave it a second glance. Jet had Ghoul thread a needle for him (he didn't have great depth perception, what with the eyepatch), and the wound was messily, but sturdily, sewn closed. Jet taped a bandage onto it, stared around at his equipment for a moment, then fell back onto a chair, his bloody hands shaking. Ghoul crouched and clutched the edge of the table, and Party watched Kobra's chest rise and fall, ever so slightly.   
“Good job Spaceman,” Ghoul mumbled, his chin rested on the table. “He's gonna live. I know it.”  
They all stood around for a minute, watching Kobra breathe, before Jet stood and picked him up. They all slept in the back, in what used to be the kitchen, so Jet carried him in there and set him on the mattress they took turns sleeping on. Ghoul brought over his thin teal blanket and pulled it up to Kobra's shoulders. Without the bandage, he might have just been sleeping, if his face wasn't so pale, and his breathing so shallow.  
And they waited.  
Kobra was asleep for a while. It couldn't have been more than a week, but it was hard keeping track of time. Jet went back to the Canal and retrieved the forgotten water jugs. He later told Party that there had been a dark spot on the sand, dried blood, and that he'd buried it. Just in case.   
More than once, he caught Ghoul sitting next to Kobra with his eyes closed, muttering a prayer to Destroya. He was the most religious of all of them, and though Party believed in them too, he interpreted them more as the type to let life run it's course. He still prayed, once, to let Kobra live. He was still so pale.  
Jet would sit in the room with Kobra, in the corner, and read for hours at a time. His eyes wouldn't move across the words, and he never flipped the pages, but he told them that he was reading, so Party and Ghoul let him.   
Party had nightmares whenever he slept, where Kobra got shot in the head, Jet hadn't been there to save him, or he just stopped breathing, suddenly. Party always found his nightmares lessened if he drew what scared him, so he had a stack of papers covered in images of Kobra and the last Drac. Sometimes he drew Kobra lying in bed, peaceful as death.  
Like now, when all of them were in the room. Party drew dutifully and frantically, trying to get the image on paper so it would be there instead of his mind. Now and then he glanced up to check his work, but he knew Kobra's face well enough that he didn't need to do it much.   
Nearly done, his eyes flitted from his paper to Kobra. Ah, his eyes were open, he'd have to—  
He dropped the paper and pencil as he realized Kobra was awake and looking at him with confused eyes. Jet looked up at the noise, and Ghoul too, and they both hurried over.   
“You're alive!” Party exclaimed, trying to hold himself back from hugging him. “You're alive! Holy shit!”  
“Doctor Spaceman's best work!” Ghoul lightly punched Kobra's shoulder. “You son of a bitch!”  
“Ouch,” Kobra said, a grin spreading across his face. “I'm alive.”  
“You're out of the woods, as long as you don't get an infection,” Jet sighed, looking like a huge weight had been taken from his shoulders. “But recovery is gonna last a while.”  
And the three of them would help him with it every step of the way.  
Kobra was up and walking around the next day, until Jet manhandled him back into the room. The pain didn't seem to bother him, or at least he didn't show it, because he seemed eager to get up and walk around, though he agreed not to wear his binder until he was healed, instead wearing one of Jet's old shirts. Party was in charge of giving him the few weak painkillers they had, every day, until they ran out about a week later. Ghoul made sure he ate every day too, and went to bed at a reasonable time. When Kobra healed, and the bandages came off, it was weird to stop taking care of him. More than once Party almost asked him what he had been mumbling about in the car when he was driving him home, but it was an awfully personal question. He'd keep it to himself until the time arose.   
One night when Party was lying in bed, only partially asleep, he heard Kobra (he could recognize his footsteps now) get up out of bed and leave the diner. Party, out of curiosity, quietly followed him up onto the roof, where he found the killjoy staring up at the night sky with an almost wistful expression.  
“Can't sleep?” Party asked, sitting down when Kobra shook his head. Might as well keep him company. “I heard you walk through the diner.”  
Kobra nodded, still looking at the sky.  
Well. No time like the present.   
“I've been meaning to talk to you.”  
Kobra's shoulders stiffened minutely. “What about?”  
“When you were shot, and I was driving you home,” Party looked at the sky. It really was nice. “You said some stuff. It's none of my business, but I was just wondering... who did you think you were talking to?”  
Kobra didn't say anything for a good seven seconds.  
“I was talking to you.”  
In surprise, Party looked down at Kobra. Their eyes met, but the other killjoy looked away quickly. He seemed nervous, almost. His shoulders were stiff, and his eyes were downcast. No, not nervous... ashamed?  
“Emily Way.”  
At those two words, something solidified inside Party. It was cold and hot at the same time, simmering and freezing him. “How the hell do you know that name.”  
“I know it because it was mine.”  
A heartbeat passed, two, and then what he was seeing changed, like he'd had blurry vision all this time and somebody had given him a pair of glasses. That was why Kobra looked so familiar, felt so familiar. His face was thinner, older, and sharper, but Party could see his sibling in the sharp hazel eyes, the brown hair on the side of his head, his pointed nose, and the way his mouth pursed as he looked at the sky. Suddenly he was the most familiar person Party had ever seen.  
“Emily?”  
Kobra had drawn his arms around his knees, and he rested his head on them, eyes screwing shut. His words came in a stammering flood, like he'd had them for so long but was so afraid to let them out.  
“No, no. Not anymore, I— I'm not Emily anymore, I'm not, but I'm sorry Gerard—“ (Party shivered, he hadn't heard that name in years) “—I missed you and I couldn't stay in the city anymore, I was trying to find you and I meant to tell you—“  
His voice was disentegrating, but Party had heard enough. He reached out and wrapped his arms around his brother, drawing him in and holding him in place, because neither of them were going anywhere ever again. His brother held him, too, and they sat there holding eachother. Kobra was shivering, but Party was too.  
After a minute, he couldn't hold himself back anymore, and he leaned away to cup Kobra's face, searching it and basking in it's familiarity. This was his brother. Holy shit he had a brother.  
“I missed you too,” he swallowed, realizing that they were both crying, starlight reflecting off tear tracks on their faces. “I didn't want to leave, but the desert— I knew it was dangerous. I was going to come back for you, I swear, but last year I came across somebody who had lived right next to our house, and he said that it was only our parents, and I thought that BL/ind did something to you, I thought you were gone—“  
“I'm alive,” Kobra's voice was as shaky as the day he was shot. “I'm alive, and so are you, and now we can be alive together. Us and Jet and Ghoul, because those two idiots would never survive without us.”  
Party laughed, almost hysterical in his happiness, and both of them grinned with tears still streaming down their faces.  
And it didn't matter that they were crying, because they were alive together and the world was whole again.

The following morning, they told Jet and Ghoul.  
“I thought you guys looked really similar.”  
“And you didn't say anything!?”


End file.
